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Former logger Randy Shoop has worked for decades in the wilderness of the Coast Mountain range south of his Hazelton home, where at least two of the half-dozen oil and gas pipelines proposed by energy companies are expected to pass.

The pipelines are part of an energy initiative to secure access to lucrative Asian markets for natural gas from northeastern British Columbia and bitumen from the Alberta oilsands.

But for the life of him, Shoop can’t imagine how any pipelines could safely transit through a region he believes to be one of the most geologically unpredictable in the province.

“I’ve done a lot of falling back in there. You fly over it and you see these mountains and you see the bush. But go down to the ground and start walking around and on the backside of every one of those mountains from the top down, the bush is just filled with boulders, 60-foot, 40-foot. The back sides of all of those mountains, at one time or another, have slid. And you see these big fissures that go down in the ground. You could throw a rock down there and you can’t even hear it stop.

“I have worked all over this province and I have never worked on ground that is so rough and so dangerous to walk through.”

Shoop’s concern over the feasibility of putting pipelines through such rugged terrain is only one of the issues confronting British Columbia as the world’s largest energy companies — Shell, Chevron, Petronas, Exxon and the BG Group (formerly British Gas) — form lines with mega-plans to spend an estimated $50 billion in making this province a global player in the natural gas market. That’s in addition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline proposal and Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin its Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

The companies are all competing with each other to be the first to develop the infrastructure needed to export oil and LNG, said Vancouver energy lawyer David Austin. It’s up to the province to establish what the industry will look like, how many pipelines can be safely built, and what kind of benefits the industry will bring to B.C., he said.

Austin questions how much overall planning is taking place.

“We have to move away from a higgledy-piggledy planning approach to a modicum of planning so we don’t trip over our own two feet,” he said. “You can only have so many pipeline corridors across British Columbia; there’s only so much water to produce the natural gas. The airshed in Kitimat can only take so much pollution. And you have to sort some of this out in advance, say, for example, so you don’t use up the Kitimat airshed for one LNG facility, thereby preventing the possible construction of two or three.”

Shoop is opposed to one of the energy proposals, the Northern Gateway oil pipeline, and registered his protest as a speaker at a National Energy Board hearing at Smithers earlier this year.

But he is not opposed to development. He does technical contracting work for the mining companies that — along with the energy companies — have increased development activities in the Northwest. Natural gas or mining does not pose the same risk of environmental disaster as does oil, he said. He has no strong opinions on Spectra Energy’s Pacific Trails natural gas pipeline, which would follow the same route as Northern Gateway through the mountains to Kitimat.

Except for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal, all the projects are in the early stages, according to Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach, making it more difficult for people to gauge which ones will bring benefits that outweigh the risks. Smithers council is constantly being approached by companies with development plans.

Six oil and gas pipelines have been proposed across British Columbia, with five of them in the north. While not all are likely to be built, for locals like Shoop it comes down to one basic question: what will be the impact on the regional environment?

Bachrach said all but one of the 100 people who spoke at the NEB hearing on Northern Gateway in the Bulkley Valley town opposed the project. Smithers town council also opposes it.

“The focus has been on local impacts. There is a large part of our economy that depends on wild salmon and they are very central to people’s identity up here in the northwest and there is a strong feeling that we don’t want to entertain development that puts that resource at risk.

“There’s a strong sense that we want economic development and we want jobs in the northwest,” Bachrach said. “Smithers is a natural resource-dependent community just like most of our northern communities. So people want that, but people also have a strong sense of values around having a clean environment and being able to pursue the kind of lifestyle that we have come to enjoy.

“We need some way to make informed decisions around the pace and scale, and which projects fit best with our values and with our long-term vision for the region.”

First Nations, largely seen as being more supportive of gas pipelines than oil, are also beginning to stir as the number of proposals to build pipelines grows.

This week, the chiefs of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council issued a warning that they have not been consulted about the pipelines.

“We are raising the alarm that these projects are at risk. While there has been some initial discussions with CSTC and our member First Nations there are no agreements in place for our First Nations to review or understand the cumulative impacts from these proposed projects,” warned chief Terry Teegee, who is also a professional forester. The chiefs say they are not against development but need to be involved from the outset.

“We are unified in our approach in wanting to protect our lands and water,” said Dolly Abraham, chief of the Takla Lake First Nation. “Some of these companies have started field studies. You are trespassing on our lands.”

The energy companies have easily invested $15 billion already in acquiring gas rights and gas-producing companies. They plan on spending an estimated $50 billion building pipelines across northern B.C., liquefaction plants at Kitimat and Prince Rupert, and new and expanded oil pipelines to Kitimat and Vancouver, making British Columbia a major player in the global energy market.

Already, four of them — in addition to Enbridge, TransCanada and Kinder Morgan — have opened, or are planning offices in Vancouver ahead of the expected energy bonanza.

On Friday, the B.C. government announced that Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett is to hold discussions with communities in the Northwest over the benefits and challenges of the promised LNG boom. The province estimates the shale gas resource at 1.2 trillion cubic feet, enough to sustain five large LNG plants for 100 years.

Three other ministries, Energy and Mines, Forests Lands and Natural Resource Operations, and Environment, are responsible for examining cumulative impacts, but all three declined to be interviewed, referring requests from ministry to ministry. In an email to The Sun, the lead ministry, Energy and Mines addressed how the new industry is to be powered, stating that it has undertaken a number of initiatives, including:

• The exclusion of natural gas-fired LNG plants from the requirements of the Clean Energy Act to deliver a mix of electric and natural gas-driven LNG plants;

• Continuing negotiations with LNG proponents to determine their energy needs. BC Hydro is offering a blend of renewable, gas-fired, and market power through the grid.

“The exact power supply arrangements will depend on the technology chosen and ongoing discussions with LNG proponents,” the email attributable to Energy Minister Rich Coleman said. “Under any scenario, we are focused on B.C. having the cleanest LNG industry in the world.”

The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is also conducting three pilot projects on economic and social benefits, and environmental outcomes.

Cumulative impacts, such as greenhouse gases, health and marine traffic, are to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as each project goes through the environmental assessment process.

The stakes are high, said Art Sterritt, executive director of Coastal First Nations, an umbrella organization representing eight coastal First Nation groups.

British Columbia could emerge as the world’s second largest exporter of liquid natural gas if all its proposed LNG projects are developed, according to a recent Conference Board of Canada report. Sterritt said First Nations are concerned that in the rush to develop LNG, the province will miss an opportunity to power the plants with renewable energy, which would create a legacy for when the gas is gone.

“It’s this gold rush mentality. We have so many people in the room saying, ‘Gee we don’t dare tell industry what to do because they might go away.’ But in the meantime industry is saying ‘We would love to have the social licence to do this in the most environmentally friendly way possible.’ We have a premier going around the world saying that she is going to do that, and I actually believe her, but at the same time, B.C. is fairly dependent on this source of revenue.

“Then we have a minister (Coleman) going out and saying ‘We would like to do that, but we can’t force industry to do something they don’t want to do.’ We have arrived at the point where we need everybody to bring all of the information, put it in the room and all make the best decisions we can, based on the best information we have available. That’s not really happening,” Sterritt said in an interview in Vancouver.

“We have had gold rushes that lasted 100 years, like salmon, and gold rushes that lasted 100 years with trees, and they are diminishing now,” Sterritt said.

“We are absolutely positive the same thing is going to happen with LNG in 30 years. This gold rush to ship it all over the world is going to be over and we might even be thinking, ‘I wish we’d save a bit for ourselves,’ because the whole bloody town where we are, here in Vancouver, is heated by the stuff.”

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Planning feared to be first casualty in rush to export energy through pipelines

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